Lab

Programs · UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy · Mar 2023 – present

Co-founding a binational program that connects graduate policy students with the institutions shaping Mexico’s energy transition.

Context

Mexico’s energy transition is a policy problem that crosses a border: supply chains, investment, and regulation bind it to the United States, yet few structured spaces exist where emerging policy professionals from both countries work on it together. The Mexico Development Lab began at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy as a student-organized academic immersion program and developed into a policy-innovation initiative connecting public and private stakeholders across Mexico and the U.S.

My role

I co-founded the Lab and serve as an advisor. My contribution has centered on program development, funding, and partnerships — designing the program model, securing institutional support, and building the relationships that give student policy work real counterparts in government, industry, and civil society. I also directed the research project behind the Lab’s policy memo, working with the five co-authors who produced it with me — project leadership distinct from, and alongside, our shared authorship.

Methods and work performed

The Lab’s model combines applied policy research with structured convening: student teams produce policy analysis for real stakeholders, and workshops bring officials, industry representatives, NGOs, and academics into the same room. I worked on fundraising and partner development, program design, and workshop organization.

Outputs and contribution

The Lab’s research output includes Improving Accountability in Mexico’s Green Transition (Aguilar, Bauman, Gonzalez, Green, Narang & Pruekruedee, December 2023), a policy memo on strengthening stakeholder responsibility to local communities in the energy transition — a project I directed and co-authored. Building the Lab is the most direct expression of how I think institutions change: not by argument alone, but by constructing the venues where the right people repeatedly meet.